Screened & Heard

January 31, 2014

The past can be a difficult thing to overcome. See O.J. Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and Cleveland
sports franchises for confirmation. This is the theme that binds
Labor Day by Jason Reitman together. Unfortunately, the flashbacks that tell the story are
the force that pulls it apart.

Reitman is a talented director who finds success in varied settings. Unfortunately, he, like his
film, found himself tripped up by the past, according to critic Betsy Sharkey.

"Labor Day marks only the fifth movie for Jason Reitman, who has made careful construction
a distinguishing feature of his films (Juno,
Thank You for Smoking,
Up in the Air,
Young Adult)," Sharkey said.

"He stumbles with
Labor Day: Absent the contemporary vibe he captured so effortlessly before, the film is
set in a small New Hampshire town, circa 1987, and given the ethos of a period piece. Then there is
the matter of the past, which haunts the film."

January 29, 2014

Central Ohio "marshmallows," you have four options when deciding where to watch the
Veronica Mars movie, set to be released March 14.

After
Veronica Mars TV series creator Rob Thomas raised a record-breaking $5.7 million with his
Kickstarter for the movie, Warner Bros. and AMC Theatres partnered to bring the project to the
silver screen.

The theater chain released its location list yesterday, and among the particpating theaters are
AMC Dublin Village 18, AMC Easton Town Center 30, AMC Lennox 24 and AMC Grove City 14.

January 24, 2014

Most people are familiar with the stories of Charles Dickens. Those same people, however, are
probably in the dark about his personal life.

The Invisible Woman tells the story of a secret affair between Dickens and Nelly Ternan,
an actress that was 27 years younger than the author. Starring Ralph Fiennes as Dickens and
Felicity Jones as Ternan, the movie slowly fills in the undefined parts of Dickens' life for its
unfamiliar audience.

While the evolution of the story is slow, it leaves room for the actors to display their talents
fully, according to critic Stephen Holden.

"Viewers might become impatient with the film’s leisurely pace and its occasional narrative
vagueness, but its open spaces leave room for some of the strongest acting of any contemporary
film," Holden
said in his review.

January 17, 2014

CNN Films and Lionsgate announced the acquisition of the North American rights to the
documentary
Dinosaur 13 by Columbus natives Todd Douglas Miller and Matt Morton at the opening night
of the Sundance Film Festival.

The movie tells the story of the famous Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex that resides in Chicago's
Field Museum of Natural History. It follows the odyssey of paleontologist Peter Larson of South
Dakota’s Black Hills Institute of Geological Research after his history-making find.

Dinosaur 13 follows the years-long legal battle with paleontologists, Native American
tribal nations, and museums that ensued after the discovery of the fossilized skeleton.

January 17, 2014

When the calendar rolls over to a new year, that means Hollywood will begin rolling out movies
from near the bottom of the barrel. Action movies that are not thrilling enough to cut it in
summer. Animation that's not cut from the same Pixar cloth. Comedies that aren't quite Will Ferrell
material. This week sees plenty of those movies on the Silver Screen.

The latest Jack Ryan tale fits this mold. Chris Pine is the latest actor to put on the Tom
Clancy character's badge. Previously played by Alec Baldwin in
The Hunt for Red October, Harrison Ford in
Patriot Games and
Clear and Present Danger and Ben Affleck in
The Sum of All Fears, Pine adds a younger edge to the spy in the latest prequel.

"Shadow Recruit is a January movie, which lowers expectations considerably. If the studio
had much hope for it, the film would have merited a Christmas or late-spring release," Moore
said
in his review. "Still, Branagh and company keep up appearances with a thriller that works
mainly because all of its parts — locations, fights and plot twists — are well-worn from the
thrillers they’ve been in before."

January 15, 2014

Many people have an opinion about the best picture of the year. Even more have opinions about
the worst one.

The final arbiter of the worst movie on the Silver Screen is often left in the hands of J.B.
Wilson, a copywriter and publicist behind the Golden Raspberry Awards, an ignominious honor
recognizing the worst efforts in cinema for the year. The nominees are announced a day before the
Academy Awards are named.